'Israel paid $250 per Jew from Morocco'

2001-06-25 23:02

Rabat - Israel is said to have paid Morocco $250 per head to encourage the exodus of Jews to Israel in the years that followed the North African country's independence from France in 1956, a British author said.

Between 1948 and 1963, Israeli sources said that 262 000
Moroccan Jews emigrated to the "Promised Land"," Stephen
Hughes, a former Reuters correspondent, said in his book
Morocco under King Hassan.

"Jews began emigrating to Israel in the last years of the
protectorate and the movement accelerated after independence in
1956, partly because of nasty anti-Semitism," Hughes said.

Quoting Israeli sources, the author said a former education
minister of the old guard Istiqlal party negotiated a deal with
agents of the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad "to allow
immigration to continue covertly".

"It was said the minister was given $500 000 in cash at a
Geneva hotel in the autumn of 1961 and it was agreed the
government would also be paid $250 for each Jew who left the
country," he said.

The cash was handed over by Mossad agent Alex Gattmon, then
the Israeli station chief in Casablanca, posing as a British
businessman named George Sellers while organising the Jews'
exodus.

Stimulated at the time by what Hughes called "Zionist
propaganda", emigration to Israel was the result of political
uncertainties just before and after Morocco's independence.

"Thousands more left for Europe and the Americas. In the
first few years after independence, the Istiqlal Party opposed
emigration saying it strengthened the 'Zionist enemy'," he
said.

When the late King Hassan ascended the throne in 1961, and
the Istiqlal party left the government, thousands more Jews
left openly on collective passports.

"A consequence was that ancient communities in the Berber
country on the edge of the desert disappeared almost
completely. They went to settle Israel's Negev desert," the
author added.

In 1952, the Jewish community in Morocco was estimated at
275 000. It numbers fewer than 6 000 now, most of them living
in the large cities of Casablanca, Rabat and Marrakesh.